Trump’s plan for what will happen to his businesses when he’s president has a massive flaw

Eric
Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump attend
the ground breaking of the Trump International Hotel at the Old
Post Office Building in Washington July 23,
2014.REUTERS/Gary
Cameron

Now that Donald Trump is president-elect of the United States,
he'll need to decide what to do with the businesses that helped
make him famous. And, his current solution is doing little to
prevent a huge conflict of interest.

Trump is the chairman and
president of the Trump Organization, a conglomerate that owns
properties around the world including commercial spaces, hotels,
and golf courses. While the Trump Organization is primarily a
real-estate holding company, it also owns brands including books,
such as "The Art of the Deal," and Trump Natural Spring
Water.

Trump has said, as president, he
has
little interest in his business and plans to separate himself
from the company, handing control over to the next generation.
His three oldest children — Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric —
currently serve as executive vice presidents of the Trump
Organization.

On Sunday,Rudy Giuliani reiterated
Trump’s plan to set up a variation on a "blind trust," in which
the three children take over the business.

Once Trump is president, Giuliani
said "there will have to be a wall" between him and his children
"with regard to government matters." Trump could potentially sign
a document promising that he would not have any input or active
interest in his business.

"We are in the process of vetting
various structures with the goal of the immediate transfer of
management of The Trump Organization and its portfolio of
businesses to Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump along with a team
of highly skilled executives," a Trump Organization spokesperson
said in a statement to Business Insider. "This is a top priority
at the Organization and the structure that is ultimately selected
will comply with all applicable rules and regulations."

Trump’s decisions so far as
president-elect have done little to separate his children
from his politics.

All three children who have been
tapped to take over Trump Organization are on the executive
committee of Trump’s transition team. Even if they do refrain
from discussing politics and business with their father after his
inauguration, they are currently in a position to help appoint
others to roles that could create beneficial policies and
conditions for the Trump Organization.

Further, while Trump and his
advisors have repeatedly used the phrase "blind trust,"
entrusting Trump Organization to his children is not a
blind trust at all.

Most US presidents put their
investments in a blind trust for the length of their presidency,
NPR reported, because they use an independent financial
advisor free of potential conflicts of interest. The Trump
children are not an independent third-party, separate from their
father, meaning that their takeover would not be
"blind."

"The fact that they have been
included as part of the transition team just shows how
inappropriate their role in bridging the gap between him as a
businessman and politician is," Meredith McGehee, a strategic
adviser at the Campaign Legal Center, told
the Washington Post. "It’s a clear demonstration that there
is no firewall between the two."

Further, even if Trump does
purposefully divorce himself from Trump Organization, since his
name is so closely tied to his business, attempting to separate
the president-elect's decisions as a politician from those of
businessman would be complicated.

Throughout the presidential
campaign, Trump's actions as a politician directly impacted
his business — and not in a way that benefitted the
president-elect. Visits to Trump-branded hotels, casinos, and
golf courses have slumped since Trump announced his candidacy in
June 2015, according to data
collected by Foursquare.

Donald
Trump cuts the ribbon at his new Trump International hotel in
Washington, DC, U.S., October 26 2016.Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Throughout the presidential
campaign, Trump made an effort to promote his brand. In
October, for example, Trump took time off from campaigning to
attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Trump International
Hotel in Washington, DC, just a few blocks from the White
House.

Trump didn't release his tax returns during his campaign
for president and still doesn’t
plan to while under audit (despite the fact it is legally
possible), making it difficult to judge how wealthy he really is.
A financial disclosure form that Trump was required to fill out
revealed in May that he had at least $1.5 billion in assets.
Trump has boasted that he is worth more than $10 billion.

President-elect Trump
has said that, once he is president, he has no interest in
the well-being of his business.

"Who cares? This is big league stuff. This is our country.
Our country is going bad. We’re going to save our country,"
Trump said in an interview with "60 Minutes" that aired on
Sunday. "I don’t care about hotel occupancy. It's peanuts
compared to what we’re doing — health care, making people better.
It's unfair what's happened to the people of our country and
we’re going to change it, it's as simple as that."

In the interview, Ivanka agreed with her father,
saying his presidency and the state of the country "is so much
more important and more serious" than the Trump
business.